A German submarine on Thursday week torpedoed and sank the
well-known Irish mail-steamer Leinster ' soon after she had left Kingstown for Holyhead. The ship carried six hundred and fifty passengers, including many women and children, and a• crew of seventy. Out of these only two hundred and seventy were saved. The passengers were getting into the boats when a second torpedo struck the ship and caused such confusion that only three boats could be safely launched. The submarine commander violated all the laws of the sea in attacking the mail-steamer ; he accentuated his barbarity by refusing the passengers an opportunity to escape with their lives. Another horrible outrage of the same kind bad been perpetrated six days before off the Irish coast, when the Japanese passenger-steamer ' Hiramo Meru ' was torpedoed in a storm. There were three hundred and twenty persons on board, and only twenty-eight were saved. The boats could not be lowered, and the survivors clung to pieces of wreckage till they were rescued by an Amer:can warship. We must never forget these dreadful crimes against humanity which the Germans continue to perpetrate while they ingeminate peace.
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